The following commentary for the Des Moines Register was written by Michael and Diane Sondergard after they visited their son, Jeffrey, a UI student studying abroad in Pau, France. Photo by Michael and Diane Sondergard.

“Starving for Water: The Global Water Crisis” is the topic at the next “WorldCanvass” program Friday, March 25. The program will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. in a new location, Room 2780 of the University Capitol Centre. It is free and open to the public.

The “Film After Noir,” series (the Spring 2011 Proseminar in Cinema and Culture) continues this Thursday, March 24, with a screening of Chinatown (1974, Roman Polanski, 130 min.), starting at 7 p.m. in 101 BCSB. Private investigator Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired out of the blue by Evelyn Mulwray to investigate her husband, Hollis Mulwray, whom she suspects is having an affair. Gittes photographs Hollis with a young woman, but when it turns out that the woman was an impostor hired as part of an elaborate set-up, the real Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway) allows him to continue his investigation. After Hollis is murdered, secrets involving the Mulwray family as well as plans involving the city’s water system come to light. Gittes is caught within mysteries and corruption, whose links he sees only too late.

The University of Iowa has nine students studying in Japan. Six are in Nagoya, about 220 miles southwest of Tokyo, and those students felt the quake but their city had no serious damage. One on an exchange program at a university in the Tokyo area is fine and has been in touch with her family. The other two students, who are on programs not affiliated with the university, are fine as well – one in in Kofu, 70 miles west of Tokyo, and the other in Hirakata, more than 300 miles southwest of Tokyo.

University of Iowa’s Carver College of Medicine has offered global programs throughout the world, but where four students will travel later this month is a first. The fourth-year medical students will experience the first medical elective in the West Bank. Not only will the students receive hands-on medical practice, but the group will see, firsthand, the effects of political turmoil on health care.

IOWA CITY – An official with the Czech Republic Embassy in Washington, D.C., will speak at midday Friday at the University of Iowa. Jiri Ellinger, head of the political section of the embassy, will lecture on ‘The Czech Republic, the European Union and the United States in a Tumultuous World.’ The talk and luncheon – both free and open to the public – will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the International Programs Commons, 1117 University Capitol Centre. No preregistration is required, and the lecture will begin at noon.

A new UI lecture series will explore and celebrate East Africa beginning Tuesday, March 22, with a talk by Valerie Hoffman titled, “Celebrating Muhammad, Remembering God: Sufism in Egypt” at 6 p.m. in Room A of the Iowa City Public Library. All lectures are free and open to the public.

Sociolinguistics expert E. Annamalai will visit the University of Iowa Thursday, March 24, to discuss the changing linguistic scene in India. His talk, titled “Challenges to Indian Multilingualism,” begins at 4 p.m. in Room 1117 of the University Capitol Centre.

Jirí Ellinger, head of the political section of the Czech Republic Embassy in Washington, D.C., will speak Friday on “The Czech Republic, the European Union and the United States in a Tumultuous World.” The talk and luncheon will be from...

The University of Iowa African Studies Program’s spring Baraza series will continue Wednesday, March 23, with a lecture titled “Poetry in the Time of AIDS: Kiswahili Poetry and the HIV-AIDS Pandemic,” presented by Aldin Mutembei (University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania). The talk will take place in 315 Phillips Hall at 4 p.m. All Baraza lectures are free and open to the public.

The “Film After Noir,” series (the Spring 2011 Proseminar in Cinema and Culture) continues this Thursday, Mar. 10, with a screening of Le Samouraï (1967, Jean-Pierre Melville, 101 min), starting at 7 p.m. in 101 BCSB.

Jiří Ellinger, head of the political section of the Czech Republic Embassy in Washington, D.C., will be speaking Friday, Mar. 11, on “The Czech Republic, the European Union and the United States in a Tumultuous World.” The talk and luncheon are free and open to the public and will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. in the International Programs Commons, 1117 University Capitol Center.

Water and its relationship to the environment, global health, development and the rights of individuals and communities will be the topic of the next WorldCanvass on Friday, March 25 in Rm. 2780 of the University Capitol Centre. The event begins at 5:00 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Dancers in Company, the University of Iowa Dance Department’s touring repertory company, will kick off its 2011 season -— its 27th -— with a “home concert” at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, March 3-5, in Space/Place Theatre of UI North Hall. The performance will feature the premiere of “The World and I” by guest artist Julie Bour, a native of France now working as a choreographer and teacher in New York City.

Roughly 20 people, including several volunteers, gathered Tuesday night at the Iowa City Public Library, 123 S. Linn St., to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps, which sends volunteers overseas to live and work. Returned Peace Corps volunteers relived their memories of time spent teaching children, traveling, and learning the language of the country.

A pioneering program leads students from Iraq to Iowa. In this edition of the “Iowa Insights” podcast, meet Sabah Hussein Enayah, a determined young mother who came to the University of Iowa with a dream: to help re-build her war-torn nation. The 31-year-old graduate student and mother of three shares how she and her family sacrificed everything to come to a strange new country.